cyclingsawatzki.com

Miles Logged: 21

Total Miles Logged So Far: 1,021

FRIDAY:

(This is the whole crew from L to R: Sharon, Diane, Stacia, Terry, Rhonda, Janine, Caitlin, Brent, Pamela, Jeff, and myself)

Friday started off pretty dang early: a9 a.m. ride! Okay that's not really early compared to the 2:45 wake-up the day before...but I was still playing catch-up dangit...I nearly slept through my alarm too!

We were going to go out and just do whatever distance wefelt like doing. Sharon and I, who both were pretty under-trained forthis thing considering she was working pretty much full time on herdissertation and me with my surgery and all, decided that 20 mileshould do the trick.

Let me tell you what, I have never seensuch beautiful riding conditions. Sunny, cool, beautiful scenery inthe country-side. And most importantly: FLAT. Oh so very wonderfullyflat. Sharon and I had a good time. I was SO thankful that I hadsomeone to ride with, because let me tell you what, if you have 8hours of riding time on your own you will lose your flippin mind. Butanyway, it was awesome we laughed and talked about the tall, skinnytrees and crazy-big birds. And just had a nice, casual, smooth rideon a portion of the metric century route.

Here I am trying to stay upright while biking and smiling for the camera. I'm not good at bike-eye-smile coordination.

When we got back from our ride a bitlater we were standing outside the hotel when a women approached usand asked us if we wouldn't mind being interviewed for the Channel 7news. Sharon and I agreed...and i'm sure we looked just TOTALLyawesome what with all the sweat and whispy hair we had going onpost-ride. But we gave it our best....spandex and all. Sadly, we wereboth at our “Inspiration Dinner” that evening and couldn't catchthe coverage of it. Probably for the best.

In any case...after our ride Stacia,Caitlin, Pamela and myself hopped over to Jimmy's Cafe for some lunchwhile quite a few of the others went to Ocean City to catch someBeach waves. I would have gone too, except I was waiting for mycompany to arrive!! But truthfully, I was more excited about thecompany than the beach, and I kinda wanted to wait for the followingday when I biked to the Ocean rest stop to see the beach! It wouldjust make it all the more special.

My brother Andy, sister-in-law Darcyand my ADORABLE niece Delia were the first of my entourage to arrive!We hung out for awhile and Delia was super excited about seeing mybike and insisted on sitting on it. It was super cute. She also madefaces at me like she usually does including the latest one I taughther, the monkey face. While making that face at me she was trying notto laugh but gave in after a few second and, because the poor thinghad a cold, accidentally blew the most massive amount of snot I haveever seen out of her nose. It was truly unreal. haha, but she wassuper cute anyway

She was also pretty damn excited about seeing my bike...but she felt my helmet was inadequate because it didn't have an Elmo sticker like hers.

Laura arrived shortly after that and weall hung out for a bit until I had to go grab my race registrationbecause the geniuses that run the Seagull Century Ride neglected tosend out the team-in-training packets until just a few days beforethe race...they all arrived on Thursday back in Lincoln and Omaha.Greeaaaat. But they made us make-shift numbers anyway!

7275 BABY!

After that was finished I parted wayswith Andy, Darcy, and Delia for the night as they were headed tocheck into the rental house they got on the Ocean and I was preppingfor my “Inspiration Dinner”

We all met in Stacia's room beforeheading down to the lobby to go to the dinner which was in theconference room part of the hotel.

Immediately when we got off the elevator we heard hootin' and hollerin' and a bunch of noise maker kind of things and were all just like “what the deuce is going on??”

When we turned the corner there wereTONS of Team-in-Training people dressed up in a bunch of wackyTeam-in-Training gear forming a channel by which all participants hadto pass. And as we all walked by they were shouting and cheering “GOTEAM NEBRASKA!!!” and congratulating us on making it. It was somoving. Even beyond what I would have expected. It was just such anice way to start off the evening, with a lot of noise and fun and itjust made you feel so good to be there and receive this giant pat onthe back for all that we had accomplished over the last 5 months.

The inspiration dinner was just sowonderful too. And i'm not even talking about the food...though thedelicious pasta carb-loading dishes were AMAZING....but it was justsuch a touching and motivating evening with all the speakers they hadlined up. Julie, not Nebraska Julie but the national Team in Trainingdirector, gave a talk in the beginning about how much we all raisedand what it all meant.

There were 192 Team-in-TrainingParticipants for the century ride. And as a group we raised....

Wait for it.....

Wait for it cause it's real good...

Over $550,000!!!!!!

Wow. I would not have guessed it wasthat much! But how awesome to know that this room full of people had,in a time of economic paranoia and depression, we were able to pooltogether over a half of a million dollars for this cause! I justthought that was phenomenal.

Then National Julie listed off thenames of the Top 5 Fundraisers. After number five was announced at$6000 Nebraska Julie turned to me with a frown and said “You werenumber 6!” haha. I don't care, I still think it's totally awesome Imade the Top 10! I felt honored! And besides, as I said before, Idon't need no stinkin' recognition!

The top winner for the evening was amiddle-aged, cancer survivor who had managed to raise over $22,000!!!WHAT THE WHAT??? That is just SO awesome! As a reward, he was given abrand new Schwinn bicycle that was decked out in Team-in-Trainingcolors and logos. It was an AWESOME bike!!

Next we had a speaker with an Insurancecompany who has encouraged his company to have their sole donationsgo to the Leukemia & Lymphoma society and encourage theiremployees to participate in the TNT events. He gave a cool speech andslide show presentation on what you should expect on the road thefollowing day for all the newbies in the room like myself, which waspretty entertaining. Full of crazy pictures. And then talked abouthow he NEEDED team in training because it makes you matter. What acool way of putting that. I could see how it could easily bemisconstrued as a selfish thing, but being on the other side of thiswhole experience now, it's easy to see what he means. It's good tofeel like you're making a difference, that what you do for somethinglike this totally MATTERS. So often in life the fact that “wematter” gets swept under the rug. So it's nice to have somethinglike this organization that gives you that in life.

The next speaker was the uncle of thenational honored hero for the event, a young girl named Olivia who at4 years old was diagnosed with Leukemia. Two and a half years latershe is now cancer-free! Her uncle talked of the struggles throughoutthe process and about the happiness and strength that came out of it.It was followed by a really moving slide show of pictures during her2 years of cancer treatments. Pictures of her with stuffed pony's andtiaras, having chemotherapy injections, dance recitals, and picturesof her port. A girl who was equally beautiful bald as she was withhair. After the presentation TNT presented her with a GIGANTIC pandabear with a team-in-training t-shirt and she comes running up, hertwo front teeth missing, a gigantic grin on her face and just grabsthe panda bear and is so excited and happy. It was absolutelyadorable.

The dinner was just so much fun, soinspiring and a perfect reminder for why we were here, why we weredoing this and why we should go out there and have FUN the next day.

After the dinner is was off to ourrooms to prep for the ride the following morning. I immediatelystarted packing my camelbak with all essential biking needs! Here's a look at all my gear:

100 oz of water

Tons of Power bars, energy jelly beans,and an emergency packet of energy gel (so very nasty)

My camera

My cell phone

Some money for food and incidentals

A mini bike pump

Several bike tools in case of flattires

Sunscreen

and my Sunglasses

Plastic bags to put our cell phones,cameras, etc. in for rainy situations

I got my biking shorts, jersey, socks,shoes, gloves and helmet ready to just throw on in the morning. Itwould be an early rise: 5:45 a.m. wake up call so that I could getready and get down to the lobby to meat my team at 6:30.

But first! My brother Matt and mysoon-to-be Sister-in-Law Joy needed to arrive! They rolled in around10:30 and we chatted it up for a bit. Joy brought me cookies forafter the race which was awesome because they looked delicious! Joy was also SUPER excited to meet Laura, of puke-catching, pee-dumping Denver fame!

Then it was off to bed!